Wish Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

44 Wish quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

All Wish quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson’s page

Ralph Waldo Emerson wishes that joy spreads instead of pain. He talks about a sudden power that follows a good intention, like a chip turning into a winged horse. He also imagines swimming across the Charles River as a simple, adventurous wish.

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When I read a good book, I wish my life were three thousand years long.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I do not wish to please him; I wish that he should wish to please me.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A scholar does not wish to be always pumping his brains; he wants gossips.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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When we quarrel, how we wish we had been blameless.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Men wish to be saved from the mischiefs of their vices, but not from their vices.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Our books approach very slowly the things we most wish to know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Beware of what you want-for you will get it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The person who screams, or uses the superlative degree, or converses with heat puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. If you wish to…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I wish to write such rhymes as shall not suggest a restraint, but contrariwise the wildest freedom.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Every day brings a ship, Every ship brings a word; Well for those who have no fear, Looking seaward well assured That…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I do not wish to remove from my present prison to a prison a little larger. I wish to break all prisons.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We all wish to be of importance in one way or another. The child coughs with might and main, since it has…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If a teacher have any opinion which he wishes to conceal, his pupils will become as fully indoctrinated into that as into…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I cannot go to the houses of my nearest relatives, because I do not wish to be alone. Society exists by chemical…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The superstition respecting power and office is going to the ground. The stream of human affairs flows its own way, and is…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Nobody is glad in the gladness of another, and our system is one of war, of an injurious superiority. Every child of…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It is always a practical difficulty with clubs to regulate the laws of election so as to exclude peremptorily every social nuisance.…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Nature wishes that woman should attract man, yet she often cunningly moulds into her face a little sarcasm, which seems to say,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I wish the days to be as centuries, loaded, fragrant. Now we reckon them as bank-days, by some debt which is to…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I should as soon think of swimming across Charles River, when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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My life is superficial, takes no root in the deep world; I ask, When shall I die, and be relieved of the…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Science in England, in America, is jealous of theory, hates the name of love and moral purpose. There's revenge for this humanity.What…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth. We know truth when we see it, let skeptic and scoffer say what…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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All life is an experiment. Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Days" Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us. 'Tis…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The secret of culture is to learn, that a few great points steadily reappear, alike in the poverty of the obscurest farm,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I wish to say what I think and feel today, with the proviso that tomorrow perhaps I shall contradict it all.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A good intention clothes itself with sudden power. When a god wishes to ride, any chip or pebble will bud and shoot…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A man must be in sympathy with society around him, or else, not wish to be in sympathy with it. If neither…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Strong men greet war, tempest, hard times. They wish, as Pindar said, to tread the floors of hell, with necessities as hard…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Women see better than men. Men see lazily, if they do not expect to act. Women see quite without any wish to…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not to be flattered, but to be schooled. I…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In the moment when you make the least petition to God, though it be but a silent wish that he may approve…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records…

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If we will not interfere with our thought, but will act entirely, or see how the thing stands in God, we know the particular…

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If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the…

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A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his will he draws his portrait to the eye of his…

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Consideration is the soil in which wisdom may be expected to grow, and strength be given to every up-springing plant of duty.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The order of things consents to virtue.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life only avails, not the having lived.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Another success is the post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious sentimentin mankind; so that the power…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

No man can be criticised but by a greater than he. Do not, then, read the reviews.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Coal lay in ledges under the ground since the Flood, until a laborer with pick and windlass brings it to the surface. We may…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am; therefore, I had nothing better to do than to think.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends, but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and leathern…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a…

Ralph Waldo Emerson